Selma (2014)
Certified: 12A
Duration: 128 minutes
Directed by: Ava DuVernay
Starring: David Oyelowo, Tom Wilkinson, Carmen Ejogo, Andre Holland, Tessa Thompson, Giovanni Ribisi, Lorraine Toussaint, Stephan James, Wendell Pierce, Common, Alessandro Nivola, Keith Stanfield, Cuba Gooding Jr, Dylan Baker, Tim Roth, Oprah Winfrey
KRS Releasing Ltd
Selma is set at the start of 1965 when racism runs rampant in the south of the US, even though the Civil Rights Act has gone into effect.
Annie Lee Cooper (Oprah Winfrey) is still up against racist elements that make her right to vote a joke. Governor George Wallace (Tim Roth) has given Sheriff Jim Clark (Stan Houston) the leeway to keep all the racist practices in place. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee that thinks it is bringing change is however not making any at all. John Lewis (Stephan James) and James Forman (Trai Byers) form part of this committee.
Martin Luther King Jr (David Oyelowo) and President Lyndon B. Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) are in talks but to no avail. The president won’t bring about the required changes easily.
King also faces J. Edgar Hoover (Dylan Baker), the director of the FBI, who is all set to bring him down. Hoover sets about wiretapping the King household. Anonymous calls start being placed on the King household which increases the tension on the already tired Coretta (Carmen Ejogo), King’s wife, who is going through a very bad patch.
King is presented as being human and fallible, and thus his achievements look even greater
Luther King does not give up and goes to Selma for the Southern Leadership Conference. Along with Reverend Hosea Williams (Wendell Price) and James Blevell (Common), he plans to organise a march from Selma in protest up to Montgomery. The march is to be non-violent and the aim is to get all the rights the blacks should be having. Sheriff Clark blocks the first attempt but when King does not give up, the march starts again and the tension increases.
Everybody has heard about Martin Luther King, and his speech ‘I Have a Dream’ resonates as strongly today as it did yesteryear. British actor Oyelowo delivers such a powerful performance that it is very easy to imagine and feel the actual strength of this pivotal character in history. Most of all, King is presented as being human and fallible, and thus his achievements look even greater.
The film revolves and survives around Oyelowo’s character but it is not a one-man show and this raises Selma on a higher platform. Roth’s performance as the racist governor Wallace is another cinematic force that shows off the opposing forces and cultural differences that were in play at the time.
Under Ava Duvernay’s strong direction, the film digs deep into the events that occurred in the 1960s. Duvernay does not employ any camera tricks or technical wizardry, preferring instead a straightforward, simple approach that slowly immerses the audience effectively into the story, making them participants in the march for freedom.
The film’s script and dialogue shows that the research on which the film is based on was extensive and well detailed.
Selma emerges to be not just an exercise in history lesson film-making but an eye-opening experience, delivered with verve and honesty.